Mortgage PPC: Cost per Lead Down from £184 to £56.43 in 12 Months
Radu Balas|Jul 10, 2026|Client: UK mortgage broker
£184 → £56.43cost per lead in 12 months
609 → 1,602conversions, on lower ad spend
£22ksaved in year one on Google Ads alone
3xSEO: doubled in year one, tripled by year three
We partnered with a mortgage broker client and delivered significant improvements in their digital marketing strategy. In the first 12 months, on Google Ads alone: cost per lead reduced from £184 to £56.43, total ad spend decreased from £112K to £90.4K, and conversions increased from 609 to 1,602. Year one already tripled leads and saved the company £22k just in Google Ads, while our agency fee was significantly smaller as well, approximately £3k per month for PPC in year one.
Leads went from about 50 a month to days with 50 leads. The highest month brought in £1b worth of leads value, more than the total amount of some previous years. Context matters: mortgage lead price varies with the mortgage type, and our client was going after high loan amounts, £500k and up.
Before and after in Google Ads: 67.2K clicks at £184 per conversion and £112K spend, versus 82.5K clicks at £56.43 and £90.4K.
Where we started
The starting metrics, on one year of data: 67.2K clicks, £1.67 average CPC, £184 cost per conversion, £112K total cost. That works out to roughly 609 conversions (£112K / £184).
What we changed
Server upgrade: faster data processing and better ad delivery.
Landing page optimization (CRO): pages rebuilt for higher conversion rates.
Mobile traffic optimization: the website fully optimized for mobile users.
Website speed: increased to 90+ on performance metrics.
Look, feel and brand: improved recognition across the site.
Content expansion: 100 new articles and entry pages driving traffic and SEO.
Remarketing: re-engaged users who had already interacted with the website.
Video ads: new campaigns to diversify channels and capture attention.
The brand we worked with: largemortgageloans.com, serving clients with £500k+ loan requirements.
The results after 12 months
New metrics for 1 Jan 2020 to 1 Jan 2021: 82.5K clicks, £1.10 average CPC, £56.43 cost per conversion, £90.4K total cost, roughly 1,602 conversions. More leads, better leads, on less money.
How we kept improving it
Conversion funnel: an enhanced lead funnel producing more qualified, converted leads.
Demographic insights: targeting fine-tuned down to zip code level.
Trends and tools: budgets optimized monthly ahead of the competition, never a flat budget month by month.
Day and hour performance: ad schedules adjusted monthly on search volume and trends, to maximize smaller budgets.
Devices: optimized across devices, with significant engagement from mobile.
Keywords: focused on high performers such as "mortgage calculator" and "commercial mortgage".
Ad formats: a mix of display and video ads across platforms.
Performance by day and hour: schedules tuned monthly to where conversions actually happen.Ad performance across devices: mobile drove 71.4% of clicks.Trends watched monthly: mortgage search interest across the UK guided budget decisions.
The bigger picture
The total number of leads increased on all channels; this case study covers the PPC side (Google Ads). Alongside it, SEO efforts resulted in a 115% increase in organic and direct traffic, with SEO doubling in the first year and tripling by year three.
Read more mortgage marketing work
The full mortgage marketing playbook we use is documented across our mortgage articles.
